Random Musings: Elizabeth Gilbert on where inspiration comes from

This is a great video to watch about the creative process. There is a part where she talks about how a poet talks about the poems and how they come to her… just brilliant.

There are other elements that underlie the talk. The idea that artists can walk into the flow of the creative force ‘to be touched by god.’ What is it like to have had that experience and wonder if it will ever visit you again. Her own fears of what if the best work was the work you have already done, that nothing else will match it. Made me wonder if it was harder to hope for your work to catch fire and speak to thousands or to have already done that with a work of creativity and never be able to do something similar again.

As much as being witnessed is part of the creative process, I think there has to be something at the core of it that you do because you can’t not do it. Because doing your creative process is a process in itself independent of the results.